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Saturday, 20 July 2013

That's it. He's gone. The "indispensable comrade", Martin Smith has - according to a slew of internet rumour and gossip - bit the bullet and resigned from the SWP. His resignation letter is yet to do the rounds, but you don't need to borrow Ted Grant's science of perspectives to predict what it's going to say. A lengthy preamble extolling the virtues of the SWP as the only successor to Lenin's heritage. The wonderful work it has carried in the anti-fascist movement, the unions and in anti-cuts campaigns will merit a mention. If he's really cheeky a line or two will celebrate the SWP's democratic traditions (as if saying it enough will make it true). And then the meat to the self-congratulatory gravy. Martin Smith will protest his innocence against the charges made by 'W' and 'X', but, "with a heavy heart", has come to the conclusion that it would be best for the SWP's tattered image if he stood down. Of course, for outsiders and SWP-watchers it didn't have to be this way. But the cult of the non-personality surrounding the SWP's hapless central committee, the hackish deference shown and expected of the middle layer of full-time cadre, and the complete absence of proper mechanisms of accountability sort of made inevitable the damage the SWP has inflicted on itself.But there are three quick points I'd like to raise. First, you don't need to be steeped in materialist dialectics to understand that this could simultaneously be and not be a resignation. Comrades have time and again pointed out that "Brother" Smith knows where the bodies are buried. He has a handle on the tangled web of shell companies and fronts the SWP uses to store its cash. He's the one who has the key relationships with useful folk-to-know in the trade union movement. And, of course, he's a paid employee of Unite Against Fascism. So, the subs may stop, but will the services rendered? I'm going to err on the side of doubt on that one.Second, it does get the SWP out of a bind. There have got to be a few central committee members breathing a sigh of relief. After all, if the alleged perpetrator of two serious assaults is now outside the party, can revolutionary justice be served when the "defendant" has altogether avoided the Disputes Committee? Something tells me that it is highly unlikely the outstanding complaint against 'Delta' will ever be heard.And lastly, is this resignation permanent or a body swerve? Is Smith going to seek a return to the fold after a decent interval of, say, a couple of years? And if he does, can he expect yet another foot stamping ovation by the dwindling party faithful?

I was outside Marxism 2013, and I noticed that nobody had seen the slightest sign of Comrade Smith, not even in the darkest recesses of the Institute of Education.

He was also conspicuously absent from the conference programme, which, when the SWP is now so depleted as to be hard-pressed to put forward a list of well-known speakers, indicates that his disappearance was planned in advance.

I think that this was a 'keeping him out of the spotlight' arrangement rather than an outright excommunication, although this now seems to have changed to a mutual parting of the ways.

There was also a rumour going around -- how true or false or in between I have absolutely no idea, but I heard it from two quite unconnected people -- that a couple of SWP veterans were going around asking party comrades to chip in to help finance Martin on an MA course. Presumably they won't have to cough up now.

Perhaps my intervention in the meeting on Stephen Lawrence's racist murder 20 years on at Marxism 2013 set the cat among the pigeons.

I referred to the Channel 4 Dispatches/Guardian investigation into a Special Demonstration Squad (police) infiltrator into "the Militant Party united front Youth Against Racism in Europe" as the speaker put it (it was actually Militant Labour, previously the Militant Tendency and now the Socialist Party, but that's nitpicking) who was trying to find dirt to smear Stephen Lawrence's family. The YRE and another "Militant united front" Panther (of black and Asian people) organised the first demonstration to close down the British National Party HQ. I was in Militant Labour at the time and went on that demo.

I had a copy of the new book "Undercover" by Guardian journalists Rob Evans and Paul Lewis in my bag and read out front page headlines "They steal identities, they break the law, they sleep with the enemy, the true story of Britain's secret police"

I also read part of a paragraph (at the start of page 16): "'It was a shadowy section where people disappeared into a black hole for several years,' recalls one officer who infiltrated the revolutionary Socialist Workers Party in the 1980s."

I also talked about a leader of the CWI (which links the Socialist Party to similar organisations around the world) who quoted half a sentence from an internal document during the debate around the setting up of the Scottish Socialist Party at the 1998 European School of the CWI (without naming him). I resigned shortly afterwards due to the position of the British and international organisations' position on the SSP and since I felt, rightly or wrongly, that infiltrators had become dominant as we shrank in size (and preferred to inform others from the outside rather than get expelled).

Anyway, at the end of my speech, I just happened to mention Martin Smith alias Comrade Delta (implying that he too was an infiltrator). There were some calls of "Shame!" and someone didn't think that this meeting was appropriate to mention him - but bearing in mind that he was employed by Unite Against Fascism, it was very relevant in my opinion...

Don't be surprised if there's no resignation letter at all. It's not really the way they do things - people who resign in opposition to the CC tend to put out resignation letters, but they may simply have Smith stay as quiet as he's been all year (except for his continued use of his official UAF twitter account).

Martin is paid by LMHR - that's how the party has got round things. The leadership's politics have become so debased, they're willing to splash out members' money in partial secrecy just to keep Martin on board.

And remember, the Gluckstein's have been officially campaigning to fund a university course of some description for Martin.

And Steve Wallis - what's the point of posting exactly the same comment on every left blog? I've see it in 4 or 5 places already.

Do you believe you're that important that you simply must make sure everyone gets the chance to see what you have to say?

Sorry for sounding harsh but, as someone who runs a blog, it's always puzzled me how some people really do seem to think their words are of world-historic importance. Just post them in one place and let people find them!

I imagine, Piggeries, that the time away to do his MA and - who knows? - perhaps a PhD will be just long enough for his rehabilitation. I don't know what's going on in bolshevik HQ in Vauxhall, but I can't imagine this parting being anything other than temporary and perfectly amicable.

If an investigation must happen, then it has to be into the culture of impunity and cult-like fawning that allows alleged and actual abuses of power and authority to take place. But we're more likely to get a socialist revolution than see that happen.

Should people take heed of Tony Collin's advice on how to run a blog? Since running SU the numbers have dropped right off, anyone with a different point of view has been banned, and the regulars have given up. The same half a dozen names appear in each thread and even SWP posts attract few comments compared to the hundreds they used to have.